Princess Laila. She flew in 1992 to Papua New Guinea, where she was greeted royally. Foreign minister Michael Somare – now the Prime Minister – deputed his chief of staff to travel around the country with her as she investigated options for the $57 billion she claimed to be preparing to invest. Her credentials essentially consisted of her claim that she was a grand-daughter of deceased Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie.

Mekere Morauta was then managing director of the PNG Banking Corporation. He says she arrived in his office "dressed in a flowing white robe, like an angel", and paraded her bangles, allegedly worth $US250,000 each, and her "million-dollar" necklace. Her jewellery, she said, demonstrated her access to large sums of money provided by Middle Eastern royalty, held in Swiss banks. The PNG government could borrow this at low interest rates, and the agents – led by herself would naturally be entitled to handsome commissions, which she would generously share with senior PNG politicians and bureaucrats. She focused on attempting to gain access to the Lihir gold project, which has since become a considerable mine.

On arrival on Lihir island, where a cargo cult was flourishing, she introduced herself to landowners as a fellow Third World victim of rapacious Westerners and as an alternative developer of the resource.

Actually, she held a US passport. Her name was Laila Pierson and she operated out of a general store in the US territory of Guam, where hopeful Lihir landowners vainly faxed requests for financial help using her codename, Mommy.

Fascinating. Many years ago she lived in Chuuk and had a Chuukese boyfriend whom I know.